A Scheme of Heaven
Astrology and the Birth of Science
Seiten
2021
|
Main
Profile Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78125-964-1 (ISBN)
Profile Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78125-964-1 (ISBN)
'A delightful and utterly fascinating work of intellectual history.' - Joshua Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein
Despite a resurgence in popularity, horoscopes are generally considered to be pseudoscience today - but they were once a cutting-edge scientific tool. In this ingenious work of history, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines a treasure trove of esoteric classical sources to expose the deep imaginative framework by which - for millennia - we made sense of our fates. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world's most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a grand data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history's most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler.
A Scheme of Heaven explores the wonderful subtleties of astrological ideas. Telling the stories of their inventors and most influential exponents, Boxer puts them through their paces using modern data sets - finding that the methods of today's scientists are often uncomfortably close to those of astrology's ancient sages.
Despite a resurgence in popularity, horoscopes are generally considered to be pseudoscience today - but they were once a cutting-edge scientific tool. In this ingenious work of history, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines a treasure trove of esoteric classical sources to expose the deep imaginative framework by which - for millennia - we made sense of our fates. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world's most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a grand data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history's most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler.
A Scheme of Heaven explores the wonderful subtleties of astrological ideas. Telling the stories of their inventors and most influential exponents, Boxer puts them through their paces using modern data sets - finding that the methods of today's scientists are often uncomfortably close to those of astrology's ancient sages.
Alexander Boxer has a doctorate in physics from MIT, a master's degree in the History of Science from Oxford and a bachelors in Classical Language from Yale. His technical research has appeared in journals such as Nature Physics. In his spare time, he is an active member of Atlas Obscura as a D.C.-based 'field agent'.
| Erscheinungsdatum | 15.01.2021 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 16 pages full colour plates |
| Verlagsort | London |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 128 x 196 mm |
| Gewicht | 240 g |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Weltraum / Astronomie |
| Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-78125-964-X / 178125964X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-78125-964-1 / 9781781259641 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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